Our July Life

It is summer time in Tennessee! And we are loving it! I mean loving it! I mean I grew up here and know what there is to do here, but experiencing it with the kiddos is making life even more exciting! This picture is from my favorite day this month. We met up with friends at the World's Fair Park splash pad and spent the day frolicing through the water, taking a trolley to Market Square, and going up in the Sun Sphere. I seriously did not know that Knoxville could be so fun. I am dying, I mean dying to repeat this day again. 

I love trees and taking walks at dusk in the neighborhood. Life is beautiful, literally!

We (meaning my parents) got a new dog. Well inherited a new dog. Schnitzel was my cousins dog and she needed a home. And the Dunn house needed a dog. Our beloved Moses passed away at Thanksgiving and my Momma was missing her doggy companion. Schnitzel is a good fit. And the kids cannot get enough of her. We took her on a walk and Cosette held onto the leash the whole time. She loves Schnitty. She pretends to be a dog named, by Leslie, rainbow dash. Now that she has stopped licking H in the face he is quite interested in her as well. He has learned to give her soft touches. So yeah, the kids are loving this little pooch. 

I have been in a serious baking mode (I really need to stop it). I tried out a new pie crust technique to get a long flake crust. Lyndon said the crust was amazing on the peach pie.

And my sister Leslie was in town and we both share a love for Paris and all things French. Naturally, we wanted to have a French party while she was here so we decided to make macaroons. 

We made three flavors. Our baking ambition was out of control. They mostly turned out. We learned a lot about how to make them through our dud-aroon experience (I kept calling them dud-aroons because it seems liked it was going to be a complete and epic fail). Lucky for us we had some success. We made white chocolate mint (green one), blueberry cheesecake (blue one), and raspberry almond (can you guess which color that one is?). Thanks for experimenting with me Lesannie!

Cosette is seriously the luckiest girl in the world! So a new Kroger opened up (Wahoo! Oh the things I get excited about in the suburbs, haha. But really it is a really nice Kroger and the deals are something to really get excited about, no joke.) and we were checking out the seafood specials and of course we had to find the lobster tank to see the live lobsters. One of the fish guys pulled one out for Cosette to get a closer look at. He showed us that by rubbing it between it eyes on its forehead puts the lobster to sleep. Cool trick and lucky Cosette to have a grocery store lobster encounter with a live lobster. That is a rare thing when you are selling them for someone's dinner (is anyone else thinking of the Sebastian vs cook in the Little Mermaid?). 

Another couple photos from my favorite day. Good things seem to happen on Tuesdays. We visited the Sun Sphere which was built back in the 80's for Knoxville hosted the World's Fair. We went up to the top, which I have never ever done before in my life! I was really excited about that. You grow up driving past it on I-40 on your way to the zoo your whole life and you know that people can go up inside it and you really want to but the opportunity never comes up until you're 25.  It was a pretty awesome moment. 

Especially whe you get a view of Neyland Stadium!!!! Go Vols! I need to find out how many days it is until it is football time in Tennessee. Okay now time to sing "Rocky Top". Never need an excuse to sing that song. 

On a rainy day we went to the American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE). The exhibit that Cosette is in above is part of the Manhattan Project exhibit there. Oak Ridge was one of the secret cities during World War II that helped build the atomic bomb (which is kind of awesome!). It is fitting that Cosette get a picture with this World War II era ID because Oak Ridge is the first city she ever lived in. Oak Ridge lovers for life! (Side note: During WWII you had to have a ID like this, not as giant of course, in order to get in to Oak Ridge because it was a secret city. No one knew it was here.)

We made it to the museum in time for the atom smasher demonstration! Well we got there for the very end of it, which is the best part because you get to do things like putting your hand on the atom smasher itself and have your hair fly up like you are Albert Einstein! Cosette was not so sure about getting on the platform at first. You can get a slight shock from touching someone's hand who is on the atom smasher. But it is very very slight, nothing alarming.

Cosette is a brave on and got up there with me. Look how awesome our hair is! We laughed at how silly we looked. Good memories were made, especially when we found...

What I call the glow in the dark room! Cosette ran in and out of it to many times to count. I hope it rains again soon so we have a good excuse to go back.

And we call him "pink beard". Cosette has the white board crayons that Henry keeps getting a hold of and sucking on them (they are non-toxic so no worries). Unlike other crayons when they get wet the color comes off them and gets all over everything. So he has been pink beard several times (for some reason it is always the pink crayon. It is probably because Cosette loves pink so it is always the one laying out). 

Our July life is my favorite. It does not hurt that we have some very important birthdays coming up either. Happy July!

xoxo